tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post5347449573970325615..comments2023-11-12T00:30:15.262+09:00Comments on Monster Island (actually a peninsula)*: Kushibo joins the Census Bureaukushibohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10306033998028548550noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post-66981263658468195602010-05-04T03:20:24.160+09:002010-05-04T03:20:24.160+09:00LastnameKim, to further answer your question, I th...LastnameKim, to further answer your question, I think if you hear that such-and-such area has such-and-such return rate, then I think you can take the percentage of non-responses requiring follow-up (NRFU, or non-response follow-up), which is 100% minus the return rate, and then multiple that by two-thirds to find out a closer approximation of who didn't turn it in. <br /><br />So if some region has a 70 percent return rate (which I think is typical), then they are 30 percent NRFU, of which two-thirds (20 percent of the total) just didn't bother to turn it in.<br /><br />Now for the US as a whole, that's some twenty million or so households. And this army of Census Bureau workers — the number itself may reach into the hundreds of thousands — must go and search them out. <br /><br />And on average, this costs $60 per household. It's a good jobs creation program for a couple months.kushibohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10306033998028548550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post-47240056933766584492010-05-04T03:15:37.623+09:002010-05-04T03:15:37.623+09:00LastnameKim wrote:
Never mind that returning the c...LastnameKim wrote:<br /><b>Never mind that returning the census is each citizen's patriotic duty, but more than that...it's EXTREMELY easy and quick that I just don't see why people don't want to do it.</b> <br /><br />Well, a big part of the non-response part is that the Census Bureau has units listed where no one now lives, and all that has to be followed up. <br /><br />Apparently in Hawaii there are a lot of secondary units at various addresses, and if they're vacant, someone has to go check that out. <br /><br />Now, one reason people are not forthcoming, at least here in Honolulu, is that a lot of these secondary units — and tertiary units we discover while investigating the secondary unit — are built without the full understanding and support of the City and County of Honolulu, if you get my meaning. <br /><br />So again, I tell them, "We don't care, and we don't share." I suspect a few of my follow-ups were from upper or middle-class Honoluluans hiding the fact that they have an illegal rental on their property.<br /><br />And this was to be part of the theme of a future post on this: I'm seeing a lot of this skirting of the law that some foreign residents of Korean cities are fond of saying is so common in Korea "but which we don't do back home." Oh, how wrong that is.<br /><br /><b>If you don't read and write English (or any of the other languages they provide), I can understand...but otherwise, I just don't see why they can't mail it in.</b> <br /><br />The list of languages they have for which they will provide language services (if not in person then by phone, after the initial contact) is quite extensive, right down to Haitian Creole. I'll list that later. <br /><br />And of course it's available in Spanish, to avoid "misunderstandings" like those John hinted at above. And workers are sent out into their own 'hoods (or nearby 'hoods) so that they're familiar with streets, type of people, etc., and so that they will be accepted by the public. I'm a grad student, and my region has four universities or other institution of higher learning in it or nearby, so I'm a natural fit. <br /><br />The only thing I decided not to do is follow the dress code completely about wearing long pants. It's been unseasonably muggy lately, and this is the tropics: It looks more unprofessional after traipsing up some hill to be drenched in sweat than it does to wear clean and neatly cut conservative shorts.kushibohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10306033998028548550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post-83304098903076947802010-05-04T03:06:10.815+09:002010-05-04T03:06:10.815+09:00John, though the training is short, Census Bureau ...John, though the training is short, Census Bureau enumerator training covers situations that are dangerous-looking. In short, if some place looks safe for some reason or other, you just don't go there and you send it up the chain of command. <br /><br />Moreover, the first thing out of any enumerator's mouth, after, "Hi, I'm Kushibo and I'm with the Census Bureau" (they don't all say <i>Kushibo</i>, of course) is the little spiel about Title 13 privacy, as he/she hands the person at the door a statement in English or Spanish telling them of the privacy issues. It basically states that the enumerator could be severely fined or jailed for revealing information, and nothing found out by the Census Bureau is shared with any other government agency. <br /><br />For this purpose, I coined the phrase, "We don't care, and we don't share." <br /><br />At any rate, enumerators are not supposed to go <i>inside</i> a house, so they're not going to spot or see anything that a mail carrier, utility worker, or cop responding to any call wouldn't have already found out. <br /><br />The whole "A census worker once tested me; I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti" line is precisely why.kushibohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10306033998028548550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post-62758458897002987522010-05-04T01:29:14.253+09:002010-05-04T01:29:14.253+09:00Never mind that returning the census is each citiz...Never mind that returning the census is each citizen's patriotic duty, but more than that...it's EXTREMELY easy and quick that I just don't see why people don't want to do it. If you don't read and write English (or any of the other languages they provide), I can understand...but otherwise, I just don't see why they can't mail it in.LastnameKimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02166790976278749188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869680.post-62265368156661749132010-05-03T23:42:14.466+09:002010-05-03T23:42:14.466+09:00I wonder how they are training census workers alon...I wonder how they are training census workers along the border to deal with situations like these:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Armed-Men-Storm-Illegal-Stash-House/KjpLIB4PdUGMRBMGhVjrbw.cspx" rel="nofollow">I'd hate to be a Census workier stumbling upon criminal enterprises</a>John from Daejeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08431973044799010218noreply@blogger.com